Halloween

Ever since I learned to smell the change in the air that fall brings, I have been wary of Halloween.  I always knew that the seasons must change, and with change comes death and then, in time, comes rebirth.  Halloween always signified the death of nature.  Not the being dead, which for me was winter, but the strangled, tortured dying of a living thing making the passage from life to death.  No matter how beautiful the trees are when they turn colors, in the back of my mind, I always knew they were dying.  I could smell it in the air.

         So, it was no surprise to me when, 27 miles out of town, on a lonely detoured road, my car passed on itself, and I was left sitting on the hood of my car smelling the death of the trees around me.  I am by nature a philosophical person, and I thought it somehow fitting that the moment my car died, my cell phone ran out of batteries, and the sun was setting.  I squinted at my map.  There seemed to be a little community about 5 miles down the road.  If I jogged, I might make it there without freezing.  I took the flashlight out of the trunk.  It at least was still working.  Mom’s voice flitted through my mind saying that if I ever got lost that I should stay where I was, and someone would find me.  But, I wasn’t lost.  I was broken down.  Besides, nobody knew how long I was going out for on this All Hallow’ed Eve.  So, I mentally shrugged and headed down the road. 

         I have never been very good at maps, but I was fairly certain that I had taken the right direction towards the little town.  The wind whipped around my body and through my cotton blue jeans.  My jacket was a boiled wool pea coat and it kept me warm, but it could not block out the wind.  The trees swayed and groaned in the wind.  My ponytail whipped around, slapping me in the face.

         On and on, I trudged down that road, every second expecting to see a truck or car lumber past.  It was completely deserted, which I thought strange as it was supposed to be the detour road for the highway that was under construction.  Obviously, I had gotten off the detour somewhere and ended up on this desolate forest road.  I sang songs to myself as I walked, in an effort to cheer myself.  I walked farther and farther along, well past five miles. 

         My bag started to feel heavy four and a half miles back.  My legs were aching and tired. My eyes were dry from the wind that whipped them.  I began to consider lying down on a soft patch on the side of the road and sleeping.  I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  I was no Jane Eyer.  Still, I walked on, deeper and deeper into the forest.  The road was getting smaller and smaller giving it a constricted claustrophobic feel.  It would only accommodate a single vehicle now.  At least it was still paved.  The trees above me made a canopy of yellow, red and brown greyed in the moonlight..  I could see the stars shining through the branches of the trees.  The sky was inky black.  I stopped and gazed at the sky.  I knew I was lost and I swallowed down the panic. 

         I noticed a light come on down a side path.  It looked like a light in a kitchen, or maybe I just wanted it to.  Like a mirage in a desert, any light could look like a kitchen light on a cold, windy night on a deserted road during fall.  So, throwing all caution into that biting wind, I turned toward it. 

         The path itself was big enough for a small truck to drive  down.  It was not paved, but had two ruts which indicated wheels, not cows.  The trees lining either side of the road were ancient and gnarled.  They had stubbornly hung on to their own leaves, brown like broad palms warning me away.  The wind seemed to be cut by them, and I liked it better than the open road.  The fallen leaves were piled high, and it was a chore to walk through them.  The flashlight shined on in front of me, lighting up the trees and scrub, exposing shadows.  I must have walked along that path for at least about half an hour before I began to get close to the little light that had seemed to beckon me towards it. 

         At the gate of the house I stopped and took a good look at what was in front of me. A very large house in rough, gray stone loomed there.  It didn’t look so much in disrepair as it seemed in stasis.  I made a mental checklist of my situation.  Halloween night, left to escape urchins banging on my door, car broken down on an abandoned road, walked miles only to find self totally lost in woods, staring at massive ominous house in said woods.  I recalled all the stories I have ever heard about old houses from “Hotel California” to A Child’s Christmas in Wales.  Do I approach house to find a House of Horrors or walk back to the car?  I turned around to look behind me.  The road looked all the more desolate and there was at least a candle burning in the window.  Just then, my flashlight died.  I briefly considered screaming.  But, I didn’t.  Well, if I was going to meet Jack Skellington, I was at least going to do it on my terms.  I walked around to the kitchen door instead.

         The door, an intricately carved and large piece of wood, was not locked.  Not a good sign.  Probably meant vagrants were inside holing up from the wind, too.  “Hello?  Is anybody here?” I called out as bravely as I could.  Nobody answered.  What did I expect?  A surprise party?  All of my friends would pop out of the darkness and say, “Surprise! What took you so long?”  I shook my head at my own silliness.  I poked around the kitchen.  It was well kept.  Not dirty, but not used either.  It seemed as though it had all the fixings of a kitchen.  The wallpaper on the wall was pleasant, the fixtures in the ceilings were antique.  Or were they made to look antique?  In the light of the single candle, it was impossible to tell.  The stove was old as well.  Ah, I thought, obviously this is a summer retreat for some wealthy family.  There must be a modern kitchen somewhere in the house.  Somebody would have to be home for there to be a candle lit in the window.  Somebody was expecting someone.  To lighten my own mood I said out loud to myself, “Honey, I’m home.”

         In a room in a far corner of the house, eyes opened. “She’s home.”